The Exiled Blade (The Assassini) - By Jon Courtenay Grimwood Page 0,78

Only this bottle was in the next row. Its wax was purple. Breaking the seal, Giulietta hesitated.

Self-murder was a sin. She would ask God to take account of what had been done to her already when he decided what should be done to her in the afterlife for what she was about to do.

Lady Giulietta crossed herself.

She said the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed and Ave Maria, because those were the prayers she knew by heart without even having to think about them. After the last Amen came the poison.

33

You’re giving me the child?

That was the last thing Tycho intended.

At the thought, the foul breeze through the cave laughed. It was sour and old and carried putrid memories of someone he wasn’t. The black flames and cavernous ceilings of the memory were not his. Tycho managed five paces into the cave before the stink forced him to a stop. The cave walls were soft, spongy and warm to the touch. As narrow inside as the entrance suggested without.

Leo was crying, pitiful whoops as he struggled for air. Tycho wished he knew how to help the child. But his own head was filled with dreams of a mother who died so he could be born. Impossible dreams. She was beautiful, distant and cold, with the same amber-flecked eyes. She walked in daylight and Tycho wondered why, if that was true, he now lived in darkness. Except why should dreams be true? “Sleep,” the voice said. “Or whatever it is you do.”

“The child . . .”

“Will not die while it is here.”

He woke to putrid warmth on a bed of white fibrous rot like albino body hair. A tendril of tree root had wrapped itself round his ankle and proved harder than he expected to snap. Leo lay beside him, eyes closed and curled into a shivering ball. The voice had told the truth. The child was alive, although only just. Picking him up, Tycho staggered to the entrance.

“What do you think?” Tycho asked.

Apparently the infant thought nothing. At least, nothing worth more than a snuffle. The day was dying and the coming night his only chance of ending this. Fear of the cave, or the need to search the fort thoroughly, meant Roderigo’s men had yet to force the yard door. On one side of the valley beyond the fort the sides were black, on the other they were purple, and he saw the lines where they joined the sky with frightening clarity.

“Planet,” Tycho said. “Planet, star, asteroid . . .”

The child showed little interest in his astronomy lesson. Above the cave’s mouth the sky glittered with the objects Tycho offered the boy, while the moon cast a tallow glow across what showed of the giant crossbow, which stood undisturbed. Tycho imagined that meant the rock he’d jammed beneath the doors was still there. If there was a guard on the battlements he was sleeping, bad at his job or simply too afraid to do it properly.

“Remember how the wild archers hesitated in front of the fort?”

Leo didn’t but Tycho did. Only Lord Roderigo’s fury had driven them on. They were already afraid. Brave men, naturally brave men, made weak by what they feared. What you love makes you weaker . . . Tycho wiped away the thought and wished it would stay banished. Maybe they were right to be afraid. Maybe he should be more afraid than he was. From inside came the noise of men talking. Tycho listened harder. Hearing the jangle of bridles on the far side of the fort.

“Leaving or arriving?” Tycho asked.

Leo kept his answer to himself. But Tycho thought it must be someone leaving, a message for Alonzo perhaps saying his quarry had gone to ground.

“Do you want to be part of what happens next . . . No? Probably wise. Princes shouldn’t be involved in things like this. Better put you back in the cave then.”

The jangle of harness receded and Tycho let the fort settle before striding to the rear door and hammering hard as if demanding entry. As if he was not the man who’d barred the door. Inside the talking stopped. A moment’s utter silence gave Tycho his own ragged heartbeat.

The fools should have rushed to the murder holes in the tunnel roof above and dropped stones or fired arrows through its rusting grating. Instead they erupted into shouts of outrage. So Tycho hammered again, louder and harder, furiously insistent. He could sense men gathering on the far side of the door.